“In my heart, I just cannot see the Robert I know being involved in something like that. He was not a violent person,” said Dedie Talbot, a close friend of Gaines back then and fellow 1993 East Kentwood graduate.

She went to the prom with Gaines, whom she described as a hulking figure who was tall and weighed more than 250 pounds.

“He was very big and muscular, just kind of scary at first. But the minute you talked to him, he was a teddy bear,” she said. “I hope my heart is right, because I just can’t see this happening.”

Gaines, 36, is accused with Robert Lee Brown, 38, in the cold-case homicide that police last week announced they had cracked.

The two suspects, who are being extradited back to Grand Rapids, were allegedly seeking vengeance after Brown was robbed at a party store across from the Johnson family home at 1150 Ionia Ave SW. They believed someone from the home may have been involved with the robbery, police have said.

Courtesy ArtLativia Johnson

Lativia was hit with a shotgun blast through a window as she went to the refrigerator for a glass of milk.

The father of Gaines, Robert Lee Gaines Sr., on Tuesday said his son is innocent and he is relying on faith to clear him.

To his knowledge, his son did not know Brown. Gaines Sr. has talked to his son in the Jefferson County Jail and last spoke with him Tuesday during a phone call.

“He’s such a good kid,” he said. “He wasn’t there when this shooting went down.”
Gaines was a noted wrestler during high school and also played on the football team. Gaines Sr. said his son stayed out of trouble when they lived in Kentwood.

“He never was involved in any stuff like that back then,” Gaines Sr. said. “Anybody that knew him knows better.”

Gaines is the father of a 16-year-old son and a young daughter. The daughter lives with her mother, but Gaines and his son live with Gaines Sr. in Mount Vernon, Ill.

In conversations since the arrest, Gaines told his father that he “doesn’t know anything about” the shooting.

“Everyone is just so stunned with this,” Gaines Sr. said. “He ain’t never been nothing but a good kid.”

After graduating from East Kentwood in 1993, Gaines attended Grand Rapids Community College for a period and then Delta State University in Mississippi, the father said. He played semi-pro football in Montana for a time, Gaines Sr. said, and recently was working at General Tire in Illinois.

Gaines Sr. is relying on faith to cope.

“We are church people,” he said. “I tell him all the time that God’s hand is going to bless us.”

Talbot lost touch with Gaines after the summer of 1993, but believes she is a good judge of character. She also knew Brown to a much lesser extent and hung out with him a few times in 1993, but said she never knew Brown and Gaines to be friends, or even that they knew each other. She did not know if Brown had attended East Kentwood.